Charade
by HermitKnut
Summary: A short exploration of in-Sam's-head during Born Under a Bad Sign. Written not long after I first watched the episode.


It's the middle of the night when Sam feels the other mind push through his own. Head almost buried in the pillow, he jumps up and goes to shake Dean awake, shouting –

But he doesn't. Or his body doesn't. It lies there, feigning sleep, and Sam has one moment of hoping it's just a dream before he hears the laughter.

_Hey Sammy. Long time – no see. _

Meg.

Her control is complete, but he fights it anyway, almost without thinking. It'd be unnatural not to fight. He doesn't panic, though it's hard, because he knows that Dean will see. Dean will look at him, talk to him, and know that something's wrong. Dean always does.

Except that they were apart for four years so what if Dean just thinks he's changed? Just another side to his little brother he hadn't known before, like the prayers. But no, he'd notice. He would.

But now he's moving – quietly, so as not to wake his brother, he is pulling on a jacket, his shoes, grabbing his bag. There's a gun in the bag that he takes out for examination, watching it glint in the little light there is. Meg turns his head towards the sleeping Dean, smiles with Sam's face, and Sam panics. He gains control of his emotions quickly, however, turning fear into anger the way he's been taught to in a fight. He pushes Meg with it as much as he can.

In the silent motel room, Sam's body takes an uncertain step back as the two forces inside it struggle. Sam barely has a chance to realise that he's never seen a human fight a demonic possession and win before the full force of Meg's power slams into him and the world goes black.

When he surfaces again, he gets the impression that some time has passed. Hours; days, maybe. He's not sure.

_Hey Sam. Look at what you're doing…_

Meg's voice again as Sam's awareness sharpens. He's in his own body, watching it fight a man he doesn't even know. Watching it kill. Dean is nowhere to be seen. He tries to slip back into the blackness again but Meg won't let him, holding him there and making him watch. It's over fast, but Sam knows that those images will never completely fade from memory. His own hands slicing another man's throat.

_A hunter, _Meg tells him, sounding smug. Sam does the mental equivalent of spitting in her face, unable to find the words. She just laughs, pleased.

It's hard to focus on what he's doing when Meg isn't forcing him to, so he loses track and the events blur. She pulls him back to himself in an unfamiliar motel room, the two of them sitting on the edge of the bed in a bloodstained shirt. She pulls his phone out of his pocket, and Sam sees: sixteen missed calls. Dean. She didn't kill Dean. Dean is still alive and he's looking for Sam. Sam's euphoria is met with undisguised derision from Meg, who thumbs through the contacts (hardly any) until she finds Dean's number. She pauses, and Sam can feel her turning to him inside his own head, inspecting his confidence in his brother coolly.

_You think I can't fool him? _she asks. Sam's proud assurance is answer enough. _Watch and learn, _she replies.

The balance between their minds shifts; Sam yells out a sound that doesn't leave his skull as he feels Meg filtering herself into his memories, recent and old. Every moment, however private, is ripped open and scrutinised. Childhood. Training. College. Dad. Dean. Ava. Jessica. Sam is temporarily lost in the flood of pain and information, twisting and grimacing, and then Meg is pressing the call button and holding the phone to her ear.

Dean picks up on the second ring and speaks immediately.

"Sammie? Where the hell are you, are you okay?" He sounds more worried than angry, and Sam is so glad to hear his brother's voice that Meg speaking with his own startles him.

"Dean I don't know what happened I think that maybe, I don't know, but I think –" The words are rushed, jumbled together, and tell Dean virtually nothing. But more importantly, Sam realises with dawning horror, they are his own. Meg sounds exactly like Sam would.

And Dean can't tell the difference.

"Hey, hey hey hey, calm down, where are you?"

Meg gives him the name of the motel and the town.

"Alright don't move I'm on my way."

Meg puts the phone down and looks up to the mirror, and for a moment she lets Sam take control of his own expression. It's dark and furious, and when she takes control back she holds onto it.

_Humans always think they're so difficult to imitate,_ she whispers to him. _But really it's pretty simple._

When Dean arrives, Meg has Sam still sitting on the edge of the bed, looking down at his bloodied knuckles. She's let some of Sam's ill-concealed desperation leak into his expression; he can't deny that it's exactly how he'd look. He's clinging to the hope that Dean will notice something's wrong when they meet in person – after all, a ten-second phone conversation is hardly any time at all, and Dean was probably too worried about him to be completely on the ball. But Meg's confidence is getting to him.

There's a knock on the door, and then a voice.

"Sam, it's me." Dean. Sam is torn between hope and fear, a combination which is getting all too familiar. Meg makes him look up. She's left the door unlocked, the better for Dean to see his little brother looking agonised.

_Quite the drama queen, aren't you? _he mocks her quietly, but there's little enthusiasm in it.

Dean knocks again.

"Sam?" Sam hears him try the door; they're looking back down at his hands now, so he only listens to the door swing open. "Sam? Hey."

Meg swallows and doesn't look up.

"Hey Dean."

Dean comes over and crouches down in front of him. Her. Them.

"Are you bleeding?" he asks, his gaze on Sam's hands.

Sam feels his throat swallow.

"I tried to wash it off, I…" he trails off as Dean spots the blood on his shirt and pulls aside his jacket to see it better.

"Oh my god…"

Meg barely allows a physical reaction, but responds.

"I don't think it's my blood."

"Whose is it?" Dean is concerned, and Sam even more so. Where's Meg going with this? What's her plan? Incriminate Sam? She's speaking again.

"I don't know."

"Sam, what the hell happened?" Dean is, Sam can tell, fighting the fear from his expression.

_Can't let little Sam see his concern, _Meg remarks. _Sweet. But here's the punchline._

"Dean…" she begins haltingly with Sam's lips, "I don't remember anything."

While Dean goes out to check to see if anyone in the motel has noticed anything strange, Meg flicks absent-mindedly through a few more of Sam's memories. Even though it's gentler now than before, Sam still winces at the intrusion. She keeps up the façade of Sam Winchester even when Dean isn't there; Sam wonders why.

_Hate to say it, but your brother's not stupid. He'll be watching closely. _She doesn't sound too concerned.

_He'll catch you, _Sam tries, but the only reaction that elicits is boredom. She's heard this before, a hundred times. Sam feels as though he's sinking.

Dean comes back, and Sam keeps hoping that something in Meg's voice or tone will give her away. But there's nothing.

They retrace Meg's steps. Sam is closer to awake this time around, and he watches as they pass by all the clues Meg left behind her. Blood on the door handle, the key to the garage, the knife on the backseat. Meg's performance of a frightened Sam is flawless, fed by what the real Sam is feeling. Dean doesn't seem to notice that Sam keeps finding just the right clues. That there's just enough information to lead them back.

Dean is very quiet as they drive out of town, to start with. And then he speaks up.

"What's going on with you, Sam, hm? 'Cos smoking, throwing bottles at people – sounds more like me than you."

_He knows something's wrong. You're being too obvious. _Sam is pleased, but Meg still isn't worried. She speaks up.

"Dean wait, right here – turn down that road!"

"What?"

"I don't know how I know I just do!"

_Subtle, _Sam jibes quietly. It's unsettling the way Meg is ignoring him now.

At the house of the hunter, Sam is still puzzling over Meg's intentions. _You're leading Dean right to it – why? Why not just kill both of us?_

_You'll see, _she answers smugly. _Watch your brother. _

It's during the discussion when they find the body that Sam starts to work it out.

_You're trying to bait him,_ he says to Meg quietly. _Trying to get him to kill me. _It makes sense; a perfect kind of revenge. And Sam can see by the expression on his brother's face exactly how much the possibility would hurt Dean.

"_If you're not careful you will have to waste me one day Dean!"_ Meg plays the memory of their argument out in Sam's mind. _You made him promise, didn't you? _she teases. _Let's see if he'll follow through. _

Sam is numb, and retreats away from what's going on. He doesn't watch as Dean sees the footage of Meg murdering the hunter, doesn't listen as Meg reads the letter from Steve Wandell's daughter aloud to him in his mind, doesn't respond to Meg's growing amusement as they make their way back to the motel.

He knows that Dean won't do it; maybe he's always known. And he doesn't know how to feel about that.

He can't help but watch as Meg pushes Dean more and more, finally taking the gun and offering it to him. And Sam hates the way her performance so perfectly reflects how he's been feeling, and he realises that now he's really looking he can see how much he's hurting Dean.

"I can't. I'd rather die." It hasn't worked. It'll never work. And now Meg's given up on subterfuge and knocked Dean out, heading for somewhere they can face off without the attention of a crowd, and somehow Sam feels as though he's won and lost at the same time.

FIN.


End file.
